Before the advent of virtual data rooms M&A teams had to physically construct physical spaces with filing cabinets containing confidential documents and other information. These were costly and difficult to navigate. And, if you’re lucky, a sleep-deprived M&A analysts accidentally sets the entire decade’s worth of financial statements on fire!

Begin by identifying the documents that are crucial to the due diligence process of your deal. You can then prioritize which documents are most important to include or not include. Avoid including irrelevant information because it could distract you from crucial issues that will affect the future success of your company.

Decide on how you would like to organize your data in subfolders and folders in order to create an order that is easy to comprehend. You can also think about indexing, which allows you to tag files with keywords or metadata to find documents according to their content. Make sure all files have short and descriptive names that accurately reflect their content. If necessary include dates and versions so that you can track revisions to documents.

You can then upload all your files into the data room so that anyone invited to the project can access them easily. Many providers offer granular user access so that you can invite users to download or view specific file types without affecting the access to data of everyone else.

After you have uploaded all your files, the intelligent search feature lets you easily locate and browse them. It isn’t necessary to leave the data room. Some data rooms include an integrated document viewer that allows to provide a fast, easy viewing experience.

Breaking Down Virtual Data Room Costs: Key Factors and Pricing Models